CHART OF THE DAY: Apple's REAL Earnings Expectations

Apple is known for dramatically lowballing its profit guidance, and then miraculously blowing out "expectations."

Since Sept. 2006, Apple has topped its quarterly EPS guidance by an average 40%, and its revenue guidance by an average 8%.

So what does that mean for this quarter, which will be reported Tuesday afternoon? (Join us for LIVE coverage.)

It's a little tricky, because Apple significantly changed its accounting practices a couple quarters ago. It now recognizes iPhone revenue almost all at once, instead of spreading it over 24 months. So we won't know reliably for a few quarters just how much Apple is lowballing its guidance using the new numbers. (Though last quarter, Apple blew out its numbers even more than it usually does.)

But running the old formula, based on Apple's midpoint June quarter guidance of $2.34 EPS and $13.20 billion in sales, history suggests Apple should report EPS of about $3.28 on $14.26 billion of revenue.

Wall Street expects lower earnings but even higher revenue: Consensus stands at $3.10 of EPS on $14.74 billion of revenue. So Apple is set up to once again "surprise" on earnings, and possibly continue to rewrite our formulas again on revenue.